The Gasconade County R-2 School District received an 85 percent on its April Missouri State High Patrol (MSHP) bus inspections, a lower rating than the fleet usually receives.

Gasconade County R-2 Transportation Director Gary Pohlmann said on Monday that five of the district’s 40 fleet buses were tagged, four for minor infractions and one taken out-of-service.

“Most of them are just little things,” Pohlmann said. “It is the little ones that most bite us.”

Of the five  buses, two were missing connection bolts on the exhaust.

“One of them was the newest bus we have,” Pohlmann said. “I don’t think it was in there from the day it was shipped out from the factory. It was just bolts, but an exhaust is an automatic fail. It was put back in and back into service. The other missing a bolt was our lease bus.”

A loose shock and a wheel seal were the culprits of the remaining two buses.

“The one bus that was taken out of service had a broken shock,” Pohlmann said. “That one had to wait because we had to order the parts.”

Out of the five buses, four were back on the road immediately.

Wile the issues were minor, they brought down the district’s 85 percent results below the statewide average of 87 percent.

“Our buses go through a complete inspection every 5,000 miles,” Pohlmann said. “Service A at 5,000 miles and B service at 10,000 miles. They are inspected all year long, but when we get ready for DOT inspections, we go through whole fleet, every bus.”

Superintendent Dr. Jeri Kay Hardy said on Monday that the district will use the test to improve on future inspections.

“We strive for excellence and we know moving forward we have to continue to provide those ongoing inspections that we do,” Hardy said. “The inspection this year showed us more things we need to look for and we are going to put those practices in place to ensure the safety of all of our buses.”

Pohlmann added that the district’s goal will always be a 90 percent or above on inspections.

In the neighboring Maries R-2 School District, buses there received a 75 percent rate of passing on 12 buses and Maries R-1 received a 60 percent on their 10 buses. No buses were removed from service in either district.

The Gasconade County R-1 School District received a 100-percent rating on the 21 buses it operates. No defects were detected and no buses were removed from service.

All three of the Franklin County R-21 buses operated by the school near Dissen received passing marks.

Spring Bluff R-15 had an 80-percent rating on five buses. A defect was found on one bus but none were removed from service, according to the MSHP spread sheet of results for all Missouri school districts operating buses.

The Strain-Japan R-16 district’s two buses received perfect scores.

And in Osage County, all five buses operated out of Chamois in the Osage R-1 School District received passing marks.

In Linn at Osage R-2, the 16 buses inspected  received a 93.8-percent rating with defects found in 6.3 percent of its buses. None were taken out of service.

And in Westphalia, the score for the Osage R-3 buses was a 65.2-percent approval with 30.4 percent of their 23 buses found to have a defect and 4.3 percent of the units inspected being placed out of service until repairs were made.